After Evagrius: The Controversial Legacy of Evagrius of Pontus

The writings of Evagrius of Pontus, a monastic intellectual of Kellia in Egypt, engaged both philosophy and the exegesis of Christian late antiquity to describe the moral struggle of the solitary life and the quest for gnosis. His work records and presents his own experiences and reflections, and those of his colleagues in Egypt and Jerusalem. In the wake of the first and second Origenist controversies, however, only the simpler writings survive in their native Greek—Syriac and Armenian monks preserved Evagrius’s advanced teachings.

This workshop explores the legacy of Evagrius’s writings in the Byzantine period and in its borderlands of Syria and Armenia, as well as in the medieval west, and is the second of two, coorganised by Notre Dame and Dumbarton Oaks, in order to produce a volume of essays intended to stimulate further investigation of the sources and development of Byzantine monasticism.

No papers were given during the weekend, and there was no audience, only participants. Twelve papers were available to participants upon registration; they were discussed by respondents and participants over the course of the two days. Readers in Dumbarton Oaks library were able to consult a shelf of Evagrius books made available to us through the kindness of Deborah Brown Stewart, Librarian, Byzantine Studies.